Tea, Titles & Tiaras with Emily Darlow
Scotland delivered two wildly different royal sporting spectacles this week, Louis had his first official appearance at a sporting event and used it to criticise his brother’s handstands, George confirmed he is a teenager by wincing visibly at his parents, Charles sipped whisky in a kilt and handed out prizes at a Highland Games his grandmother founded, and across the North Sea, a Danish princess arrived for eleven months of military service carrying a sports bag and absolutely no airs whatsoever. We also have Diana’s missing veil, found and recreated. Let’s get into it.
Princess Eugenie, a niece of King Charles, has announced the birth of her third child with husband Jack Brooksbank. Eugenie, the younger daughter of the former prince now known as Andrew Mountbatten-Windsor and his ex-wife Sarah Ferguson, already has two sons: August, who was born in February 2021, and Ernest, born in June 2023. “Jack and I are so excited to announce Baby Girl Brooksbank!! We are beyond in love with our girlie,” Eugenie said in a post on Instagram. A separate post by the royal family’s official account on X added: “Their Majesties The King and Queen and other members of The Royal Family were delighted to be informed of the news.” The couple’s latest addition to their family was born on Monday at a hospital in Lisbon, Portugal, weighing 6lb 9oz (2.98kg), and mother and baby are said to be doing well. The birth is a rare occasion where a member of the UK royal family has been born overseas, with Eugenie and Brooksbank having a home and other connections in Portugal. Eugenie and her husband will be taking time to decide on the name of their new daughter while they enjoy time as a family. The baby girl will not be a Her Royal Highness and is 15th in line to the throne, with her great uncle the Duke of Edinburgh moving down to 16th place. Eugenie married marketing executive Brooksbank at Windsor Castle in 2018.
The status of the princess, the 12th in line to the throne, has faced scrutiny since the fall from grace of her father over his friendship with the late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein. Mountbatten-Windsor was arrested in February by police on suspicion of misconduct in public office, having been stripped of all his titles, his mansion and any public involvement with the family. He denies wrongdoing and has said he regrets his friendship with Epstein. While Eugenie and her sister Beatrice have been absent from most prominent public royal occasions since, they did appear with other senior royals at the wedding of their cousin Peter Phillips in June.
The 2026 Commonwealth Games opened in Glasgow on July 23, and the royal family turned up in force throughout the week. King Charles and Queen Camilla presided over the opening ceremony. On Thursday July 30, Princess Anne and Prince Edward had a rare joint sibling appearance at several venues, watching athletics, weightlifting and track cycling at Scotstoun Stadium alongside Sir Timothy Laurence and Sophie. Then on Saturday August 1, the Wales family arrived.
It was Louis’s first official appearance at a major sporting event – his older siblings both made their Commonwealth Games debuts in Birmingham in 2022 when Charlotte was seven and George was nine. At eight, Louis has arrived. He watched netball, judo and track cycling in Glasgow alongside his parents and siblings, and was introduced to the event’s unicorn mascot, Finnie, who received a high-five from all three children with the kind of committed enthusiasm only possible when you are under twelve. Charlotte looked genuinely overjoyed; her brothers largely followed suit.
Kate revealed at trackside that Louis has been working on his handstands. “Louis, you’re perfecting your handstand at the moment,” she said, turning to include him. Louis, arms folded, confirmed he had been doing “a bit” of handstand practice, then added that Charlotte said he was not very good. Charlotte, who takes ballet, did not dispute this. Charlotte, for her part, was also noted to have a particularly warm reunion with Sophie when the Edinburgh and Wales family groups converged at the Games, the pair sharing what onlookers described as a notably close and easy affection that has been observed at several events this year. Sophie, as royal watchers know, is a steady and trusted guide for Charlotte as she grows into her public role, and the dynamic between them has become increasingly visible.
The family met athletes supported by SportsAid, the charity Kate has been patron of since 2013, which supports emerging talented young athletes facing financial barriers. Kate watched Dame Laura Kenny – five-time Olympic cycling champion – at the velodrome, and Kenny duly suggested the couple come and try the track. Kate told a nearby presenter: “Be careful what you wish for, as they want to put us on a tandem in the velodrome.”
Welsh television presenter Gethin Jones turned immediately to the children. “Would you like to see mum and dad on a tandem later?” George, thirteen years old and two and a half weeks into teenage life, replied with a single word: “No.” The crowd laughed. Kate burst out laughing. William deadpanned: “We embarrass you enough as it is.” George looked exactly as mortified as any self-respecting thirteen-year-old in that situation is obliged to look, which is to say: completely.
While William was being gently humiliated by his firstborn in Glasgow, Charles was in Caithness, celebrating with the Scott’s
On Saturday August 1, the King attended the Mey Highland Games at John O’Groats Showground in his annual role as Chieftain, wearing the Balmoral tartan kilt, a royal pattern reserved exclusively for the sovereign, with a beige waistcoat, jacket, leather sporran and red hose. He has held the role since 2002 when his beloved grandmother, Queen Elizabeth the Queen Mother, died. She established the Games in 1970 to mark her own 70th birthday, and they have been held annually ever since. Charles has attended every single year without exception, missing the start of the Rio Olympics in 2016 to be there, and apparently would rather miss most things than break this particular tradition.
This year he watched caber tossing, tug of war, Highland dancing and massed pipe bands, was greeted by the crowds to a raising of the royal standard, and paused at one point to enjoy a dram of whisky. He was joined by his favourite cousin, Lady Sarah Chatto, Princess Margaret’s daughter, who was seated behind him in the royal marquee. Also present were Lady Sarah’s son Samuel Chatto and his newly engaged fiancée Eleanor Ekserdjian, who has now appeared at the Highland Games, Peter Phillips’ wedding, and Christmas at Sandringham. At this rate the press will have to officially classify her as a working royal.
After the Games, the King returned to the Castle of Mey, the Queen Mother’s former Scottish residence on the northern tip of the country, where he stays each August before heading to Balmoral. The castle, which the Queen Mother rescued from dereliction in 1952, is now managed by a charitable trust and is open to visitors for much of the year, closing during the King’s stay. Charles paints there, walks along the coastline and, by all accounts, is happier in Caithness in August than almost anywhere else on the calendar.
A diplomatic but genuinely interesting question has emerged this week following Harry’s public invitation to King Charles to attend the 2027 Invictus Games in Birmingham.
Harry issued the invitation openly, telling reporters he would “love” for his father to be there and that the Invictus Games represent everything the family should stand behind: injured and sick veterans and service personnel competing in sport as part of their recovery. Charles founded the armed forces charity which directly preceded Invictus. Supporting it would be natural. Attending, given the current state of the father-son relationship, is considerably more complicated.
No response has been given from the palace. Royal sources have noted the Games are still over a year away, which is a polite way of saying this conversation will develop considerably between now and 2027. The Invictus Games are coming to Birmingham. Harry will be there. Whether or not Charles stands beside him in that stadium is, at this moment, one of the most genuinely meaningful unanswered questions in the royal family’s immediate future. We will be watching closely.
This week marked 45 years since Princess Diana and then-Prince Charles were married at St Paul’s Cathedral on July 29, 1981, an event watched by an estimated 750 million people across 74 countries. And to mark the anniversary, a genuinely moving piece of news: Diana’s missing wedding veil has been recreated.
Diana’s wedding dress, designed by David and Elizabeth Emanuel in their small Mayfair studio under conditions of extraordinary secrecy, has become one of the most famous garments in history. The dress, with its 25-foot train, 10,000 mother-of-pearl sequins and dramatically puffed sleeves, has been displayed at exhibitions since her death in 1997. But never with the veil. Because the veil, a 40-foot length of tulle, hand-stitched with 10,000 micro pearls by the embroidery house Hand and Lock, extending in a cascade behind her as she descended the cathedral steps, went missing or was damaged in the decades after the wedding, and has never been seen since.
Elizabeth Emanuel, who now works alone following her divorce from David, was commissioned by Renae Plant, founder of the Princess Diana Museum, to oversee a recreation. She returned to Hand and Lock, who retrieved their original records and worked from an original piece of the fabric to match it as precisely as possible. The veil is bigger than the room they had to make it in and was constructed in stages. It has been named, by Emanuel, the Veil of Light.
“It needs that veil. That’s the whole magic,” Emanuel said. “You can see the twinkle, and it radiates. The dress isn’t as complete without the veil.” She described its texture as being “like tissue paper” and its effect as “fairy dust.” The completed veil will tour with Diana’s wedding dress in an autumn exhibition. For the first time in forty-five years, the dress and veil will be reunited as Diana wore them on the steps of St Paul’s. It is rather wonderful.
For the record: Diana and David Emanuel also made a backup dress in case the design was leaked before the wedding and immediately destroyed their sketches after showing Diana the original. Security levels that would make a modern press office weep.
And finally, from Copenhagen this week, a story that deserves nothing but warmth.
Princess Isabella of Denmark, daughter of King Frederik and our own Australian-born Queen Mary, turned up at the Antvorskov Barracks of the Guard Hussar Regiment in Slagelse, west of Copenhagen, on Monday morning to begin eleven months of military service. She arrived in a light brown suede jacket, white T-shirt, baggy jeans and practical shoes, carrying a large sports bag. No fuss, no ceremony, no royal entrance. Just a nineteen-year-old dropping off a bag with a thousand other new recruits.
She is among the first women to complete Denmark’s newly extended conscription program. From July 2025, Denmark expanded conscription to include women via lottery when they turn eighteen, and simultaneously extended the service period from four months to eleven. Five months of basic training, six months of operational duty. Isabella will complete the full program at the same regiment where her brother Crown Prince Christian completed his own service the previous year.
The detail that is perhaps most telling: Isabella will forgo the pay and food allowance that comes with her service, roughly $29,400 in salary and tax-free subsistence over the eleven months, following the same choice her brother made. The royal court confirmed this. It means she will complete one of the most physically and mentally demanding experiences a young person can undertake, unpaid, under identical conditions to everyone else, with cameras only at the gate on the first morning, and then privacy for the rest.
A tandem bike declined by a thirteen-year-old, a King in a kilt with a dram of whisky, a father’s invitation to Birmingham hanging unanswered in the summer air, forty feet of tulle reunited with a dress it never should have lost, and a princess who showed up for military service with a sports bag and no expectations of special treatment. The Crown, at full stretch, in all its forms. Until next week, keep the tea piping hot and the tiaras polished.
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